Nine major non-farm sectors of the economy have shown an employment growth of 29 per cent since 2014, as per the first Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) of the All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES) of the Labour Bureau.

The survey report covering April-June, 2021 period was released by Labour and Employment Minister Bhupender Yadav today.

The AQEES has been taken up by the Labour Bureau to provide quarterly updates about employment and related variables of establishments, in both organised and unorganised segments of nine selected sectors.

The nine sectors altogether account for a majority of the total employment in the country’s non-farm establishments. These sectors are Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation and Restaurant, IT/ BPO and Financial Services.

Announcing the results, Yadav said the estimated total employment in the nine selected sectors from the first round of QES is 3.08 crores approximately, against a total of 2.37 crores in these sectors collectively, as per the sixth Economic Census (2013-14), reflecting thereby a growth rate of 29 per cent.

The overall participation of female workers stood at 29 per cent, slightly lower than 31 per cent reported during the 6th Economic Census, the report showed.

Yadav said Manufacturing accounts for nearly 41 per cent followed by Education with 22 per cent, and Health eight per cent. Trade as well as IT/BPO each engaged seven per cent of the total estimated number of workers.

The Minister said scientifically collected data with purity and integrity that can be cross-examined will be immensely beneficial towards achieving targeted and last mile delivery of government programmes and schemes.

Sharing the findings on the pandemic-induced employment retrenchment/decline, the Labour Minister said the impact was evident in 27 per cent of the establishments. However, the silver lining was that 81 per cent of the workers received full wages during the lock-down period (25 March-30 June, 2020).

The key Highlights of the first Quarterly Employment Survey showed that the most impressive growth of 152 per cent was recorded in the IT/BPO sector, while growth rates in Health is 77 per cent, Education 39 per cent, Manufacturing 22 per cent, Transport 68 per cent and in Construction it is 42 per cent.

However, employment in Trade came down by 25 per cent and in Accommodation & Restaurant the decline was by 13 per cent. Financial services saw a growth rate in employment of 48 per cent.

Nearly 90 per cent of the establishments have been estimated to work with less than 100 workers, the corresponding figure during the sixth Economic Census being 95 per cent.

Nearly 35 percent of the IT/ BPO establishments worked with at least 100 workers, including about 13.8 per cent engaging 500 workers or more. In the Health sector, 18 per cent of the establishments had 100 or more workers.